Letters to the Editor

Untitled Document
We welcome letters. Please include your full name,
address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters,
Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958;
e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. HE REPRESENTS THE BEST OFTHESJ-R What is the State
Journal-Register thinking by letting
Paul Povse go? He is one of the finest, nicest people in Springfield and a
great credit to the newspaper. For 37 years, he has served as features
editor and columnist. He’s won the admiration and respect of this
community. He represents the best of the State
Journal-Register. This is a very bad start for
Gatehouse Media. They are making a huge mistake. Molly SchlichSpringfield CUT BACK ON GOVERNMENT VEHICLES As an Illinois taxpayer, I think that it is time to
stop the personal use of government cars. I know a state employee who has a
secretary of state car, state-police car, and state-police motorcycle in
his yard at all times. I would like to know why some people are furnished
with government cars that they drive to and from work. If we disallow all
non-business-related use of these vehicles, we could not only save gasoline
but save buying so many new cars. Robert E. Calhoun Sherman NEEDLESSLY DYING FOR OUR RIGHTS The tragic events in Virginia should serve to remind
us of the Illinois Mental Health Code and Confidentiality Act. These
statutes are a legalistic nightmare that overemphasize the “civil
rights” of the mentally ill at the expense of their treatment needs. One of the many concerns is the “right”
of a suicidal or homicidal patient in a hospital to refuse necessary
treatment until the patient has actually cut his wrists or assaulted
another person. This provision deprives sick patients of prompt and at
times lifesaving treatment, prolongs hospitalization, increases costs, and
creates serious physical and emotional risks for patients and for already
overburdened nurses and mental-health workers who labor
courageously in Illinois mental hospitals. Working with the mentally
ill is difficult enough. It has become much more difficult. How will we
recruit qualified personnel to work in our hospitals if they are not
permitted to treat patients? Many staff members, especially in state
hospitals, have become so intimidated by legal harassment that they are
afraid to act decisively on a patient’s behalf, believing it safer to
do nothing in an emergency than run the risk of legal attack. Another rule restricts commitment only to physically
dangerous patients. This deprives necessary treatment to thousands of
mentally ill individuals who do not fit this narrow legal definition of
commitability and who will be returned to their families, jailed, or thrown
back on the mercy of communities that in no way are prepared to deal with
this type of disturbed individual. Families of patients suffer as much as their
disturbed members, yet the code disregards the family’s agony and
neglects their right to see that one of their loved
ones receives prompt and adequate treatment. The present controversy over the code is sadly
reminiscent of a similar situation several years ago when the
Legislature was considering lowering the drinking age. Civil libertarians,
with the help of the liquor industry, made the issue a civil-rights one.
However, those of us who work with alcoholics on a daily basis felt that
the grave public-health consequences of a lowered drinking age far
outweighed the issue of rights. The Legislature failed to heed the advice
of professionals who worked with alcoholics and voted to lower the drinking
age from 21 to 19. The rest is history. Similarly, with the Mental Health
Code, the Legislature disregarded the warnings and concerns of individuals
who work directly with the mentally ill in favor of a small group of civil
libertarians who want to guarantee to the mentally ill the right to be
insane, the right to share their suffering with their families and
neighbors, the freedom to commit suicide and other destructive acts, the
freedom to wander the streets, pursued by imaginary demons, easy
victims of all the brutalizing forces that prey on the helpless in
today’s society. A small group of lawyers succeeded in
“protecting” the mentally ill from the very health-care givers
who offered them some chance of recovery. Freedom with sanity is not
freedom. It is slavery. Alex J. Spadoni, M.D. Joliet BARACKOBAMA’S FIRST CONCERN During the Democratic debate, the candidates
were asked what each would do if he or she just learned that two American
cities had been struck by Al Qaeda. All of the candidates who answered, including Barack
Obama, responded that they would first make sure of their facts, then work
as swiftly as possible to retaliate, to discover what happened, and to
create a situation in which it wouldn’t happen again. There was a difference, though in Obama’s
reply. His first thought wasn’t for revenge. The first [thing] out of
his mouth, his first thought, was to start working to get an emergency
response to the people affected. This is a whole different kind of attitude. I think
that if someone dropped a bomb or a hurricane [hit] in this general
neighborhood, it would be a really nice change to have someone sitting in
the Oval Office whose first thought would be to be genuinely concerned
about the possibility that I might need some help. Dianne LeeGlen Carbon WHATILEARNEDFROMTHEBIRDS I have always thrown my scrap bread and such out to
the birds to feed them. They are living creatures and have to eat. My
neighbors and I have talked about how, in the last few years, there have
been fewer and fewer cardinals and songbirds and a tremendous influx of
blackbirds, crows, and grackles. They move in and chase the birds that were
consider nicer and more desirable out. And they eat and they eat and they
eat. And once a year, usually in the spring, they have baby birds like
themselves so there are more of them. I got a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and
filled it with seed. Within no time we had dozens of birds taking advantage
of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the
birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table,
and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the
patio tile, the chairs, the table . . . everywhere. Some of the birds turned mean. They would dive-bomb
me and try to peck me, even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.
Other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on and around the feeder,
and in the tree branches overhead, and squawked and screamed at all hours
of the day and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. They even
got to know me and would fly in low and wait when they saw me come outside,
just expecting food, whether I had any or not, such as when I was just
walking out to my car. They even watched me through my kitchen window. My
neighbor complained that he was being inconvenienced by the birds’
moving over to his property and the extra amount of bird poop on his car. After a while, it was unpleasant just to try to sit
on my deck any more, so finally I took down the bird feeder, and in a week
most of the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess. Soon the back yard
was like it used to be — quiet, serene, and no one demanding their
“rights” to a free meal. As a 19th-century poet said, you can learn a lot from
watching nature. Our government gives out free food, subsidized
housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here
to be an automatic citizen. Others come in and try to take advantage of the
gravy train as well. This is a country that punishes those who work, try to
get an education, try to take care of themselves, try to do things the
“right” and traditional way. Like the flowers, the birds
neither reap nor sow; some at least give back to us with their song and
their beauty. Then there are others that merely exist — they had
their own songs and actions and characteristics but for the most part
contribute nothing. It’s a give-and-take situation — we give,
and they take. Maybe it’s time for all of us to take down the
bird feeder. Jean Stables Decatur